South Sudan VP Riek Machar withdraws SPLM-IO party from Kenya-led Tumaini Peace Initiative

South Sudanese First Vice President Riek Machar announced on Wednesday that the main opposition group, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), which he leads, has withdrawn from the Kenya-led Tumaini peace initiative.

Machar accused the initiative of overstepping its mandate and undermining the East African Community's existing revitalised peace agreement and sovereignty, sending Kenyan mediators back to the drawing board.

Earlier this week, the parties to the Kenya-led initiative signed eight protocols encompassing security, ceasefire, communal violence, arms proliferation, land disputes, trust-building, humanitarian access, and the role of guarantors.

The protocols signed in Nairobi establish institutions that already exist under the revitalised peace agreement signed by President Salva Kiir's government and the main armed opposition group in September 2018.

Negotiators stated that these protocols, which emerged from months of negotiations, aim to address critical issues in South Sudan.

However, in a statement issued on Tuesday and seen by The Eastleigh Voice, Machar said the protocols signed by the Tumaini Initiative parties were incompatible with the revitalised peace deal.

The group claimed the protocols introduced parallel institutions, duplicated R-ARCSS provisions and encroached on national laws.

"The Protocols establish alternative institutions, replacing or running in parallel with those in R-ARCSS besides repeating most provisions in R-ARCSS or existing national laws. The Protocols clearly breach the R-ARCSS and undermine the ongoing peace implementation processes," the statement said.

The SPLM-IO further accused the initiative of overreach, saying it had assumed excessive roles, including funding, supervising, coordinating, and monitoring peace implementation. These functions, the group argued, should be the purview of the South Sudanese government.

Machar also contended that the roles of guarantors such as IGAD, AU, UN, EU, Troika, and IGAD partners forum, who are engaged in the peace process in South Sudan, are being muted.

In his statement, Machar highlighted, "The roles of the guarantors, namely IGAD, AU, UN, EU, Troika, and IGAD partners forum, who are seized of the peace process in South Sudan, are muted."

This withdrawal has raised significant concerns about the future of the peace process in South Sudan and the effectiveness of the Tumaini Initia

Mabior Garang de Mabior, a South Sudanese politician and son of the late Dr John Garang de Mabior, voiced his concerns about the failure of the 2018 Peace Agreement and expressed hope in the Tumaini Initiative during an event in Nairobi.

"We are tired of the R-ARCS being used as an excuse to prolong the suffering of our civil population. The writing is on the wall. The current agreement has failed miserably," he stated on Tuesday.

"The bloated government of 5 VPs, 550 MPs, and 35 Ministers has devastated our country's economy. The country is broke. This is not the time for eloquence. It is time for an alternative to the R-TGONU's protracted interim periods to come to an end."

"These greedy politicians have done nothing but share the national cake for the last four years. The Tumaini Peace Initiative offers a peaceful mechanism to end the suffering imposed by the ARCSS on the citizens of our nascent Republic," he said.